links136:Umm, what about Japanese and German unions? German unions for example, pay twice the amount as their American counterparts when you include benefit packages. Or did Detroit fail because they were shiatty run companies, like the rest of the country?

We'll find out in 30 years, when German and Japanese worker unions get to the same point on their pensions-supported-by-active-workers ratio that the UAW hit in 2008.

Debeo Summa Credo:Where do you think the cash supposedly deposited in cayman banks goes? Does it sit in a vault? When you buy a painting, you give money to the seller. What does the seller do with it? Burn it?

bottom line the poor and middle class move their money through the economy with a greater velocity and they spend it on a wider variety of more labor intensive of goods and services than the very wealthy. So less money in the hands of the very wealthy and more in the hands of the workers is never a bad thing ever in the history of the world.

Where do you think the cash supposedly deposited in cayman banks goes? Does it sit in a vault? When you buy a painting, you give money to the seller. What does the seller do with it? Burn it?

Its used a collateral in order to get a government secured loan to buy a functioning business, load it down with expansion loans backed by the the employee's pension accounts which are used to pay out fees back into the same Cayman bank account.

LOL. why would they need cash collateral for "government secured loans" if they already have the cash??

Headso:bottom line the poor and middle class move their money through the economy with a greater velocity and they spend it on a wider variety of more labor intensive of goods and services than the very wealthy. So less money in the hands of the very wealthy and more in the hands of the workers is never a bad thing ever in the history of the world.

Not quite true.

First, "wealthy" is ill-defined. Does it include people earning $250,000 a year?

Second, the middle class aren't the "workers." The middle class is a broad spectrum that includes people above working-class (unskilled or semi-skilled) all the way up through your professionals.

Finally, the wealthy generally have their money in owned properties, companies, stock, etc. They serve a useful role in this regard.

But snark aside, there is a ton of idle capital sitting around right now. It is not trickling down as we have been told it should. Concentrating that capital into larger pools under the control of fewer people will not benefit society at large. The other side is that taking all capital away will not be a great boon either. Its almost like both sides need to be balance for a healthy economy. Right now the scale is tipping in the favor of accumulated capital.

LDM90:I'd rather get angry at the customers. What the fark is wrong with you people? You don't need all that shiat!

Well, I'm not too angry at the people who are living on the poverty line, they really don't have a choice. But the people with money really should know better. Most of their shiat doesn't last half as long as the same stuff from another store. Its made cheaply and its disposable.

Debeo Summa Credo:Oh, and you are wrong regarding risk aversion and wealth. The more wealth you have, the more ventures you can invest in, resulting in a less volatile return. A less wealthy person may only have the means to invest in one venture, which results in a significantly more risky portfolio overall.

The more risky ventures you can invest in. That doesn't mean anyone will.

Non-risky ventures have a lower return, but are safe. If you have enough capital (read: a farkton) then you can subsist wholly off of returns on low-risk investments.

I knew a guy who had worked for Wal-Mart for years and was making $17 an hour. He quit the company to leave for "greener pastures" and 6 months later he was desperate to get back with the company. Because he quit he'd be going back to the starting wage - which was like 9 bucks an hour.

The point is that if you don't have a degree then you don't have many options. And, honestly, most of the people who make nine dollars an hour barely deserve to make that much.

But if you're somewhat intelligent and know how to work hard then you'll eventually make a decent wage - but I suppose that would be asking too much. People should just make a living wage no matter how unemployable, unreliable, lazy or unintelligent they are right?

Headso:Debeo Summa Credo: Where do you think the cash supposedly deposited in cayman banks goes? Does it sit in a vault? When you buy a painting, you give money to the seller. What does the seller do with it? Burn it?

bottom line the poor and middle class move their money through the economy with a greater velocity and they spend it on a wider variety of more labor intensive of goods and services than the very wealthy. So less money in the hands of the very wealthy and more in the hands of the workers is never a bad thing ever in the history of the world.

So you understand that money deposited in offshore bank accounts doesn't disappear, contrary to many on fark. That was my point.

Re your velocity of money comment, that is a subjective determination given facts and circumstances at the time. Clearly you recognize that some balance between investment and consumption is necessary. Relative benefit is dependent on what is being consumed/invested in.

Be careful always assuming consumption of "labor intensive" goods is always better than investment. Buying imported jeans from walmart is not as beneficial to the economy as expanding a plant, and a rich guy paying some servants to carve a statue of himself or hold his dick while pissing is less beneficial than his investing those funds in a new mine or solar energy firm.

iutodd32:But if you're somewhat intelligent and know how to work hard then you'll eventually make a decent wage - but I suppose that would be asking too much. People should just make a living wage no matter how unemployable, unreliable, lazy or unintelligent they are right?

Doesn't anyone understand the concept of "earning money"?

While that sounds all very nice and Randian, what is to stop companies of shiat-canning workers after a few years for younger, dumber ones they can more easily exploit? Everyone is replaceable.

FirstNationalBastard:They shouldn't have talked about it... just quietly arranged the walkout or strike or sick-out or whatever and left Wal-Mart hanging on Black Friday.

You clearly don't understand how these things work. Any actual action these union people eventually take will be so stupid, useless and futile that it will be a bare blip on anyone's radar, much less Walmart. They need to talk about it now because they can say just about anything they want and puff it up to be a lot bigger than it actually will be. It's the same thing with Occupy Wall Street - all hot air and no real action.

Debeo Summa Credo:Headso: Debeo Summa Credo: Where do you think the cash supposedly deposited in cayman banks goes? Does it sit in a vault? When you buy a painting, you give money to the seller. What does the seller do with it? Burn it?

bottom line the poor and middle class move their money through the economy with a greater velocity and they spend it on a wider variety of more labor intensive of goods and services than the very wealthy. So less money in the hands of the very wealthy and more in the hands of the workers is never a bad thing ever in the history of the world.

So you understand that money deposited in offshore bank accounts doesn't disappear, contrary to many on fark. That was my point.

Re your velocity of money comment, that is a subjective determination given facts and circumstances at the time. Clearly you recognize that some balance between investment and consumption is necessary. Relative benefit is dependent on what is being consumed/invested in.

Be careful always assuming consumption of "labor intensive" goods is always better than investment. Buying imported jeans from walmart is not as beneficial to the economy as expanding a plant, and a rich guy paying some servants to carve a statue of himself or hold his dick while pissing is less beneficial than his investing those funds in a new mine or solar energy firm.

But snark aside, there is a ton of idle capital sitting around right now. It is not trickling down as we have been told it should. Concentrating that capital into larger pools under the control of fewer people will not benefit society at large. The other side is that taking all capital away will not be a great boon either. Its almost like both sides need to be balance for a healthy economy. Right now the scale is tipping in the favor of accumulated capital.

Okay, but where is the idle capital sitting? People complain that firms and the wealthy are sitting n capital, but they don't realize that nobody just puts cash in the vault. It goes somewhere.

Right now, with the global economy still fragile, alot of that excess capital is sitting in risk free assets like treasury securities. If that capital moved to more risky ventures, it would cost us more to finance our trillion dollar annual deficits. So be careful what you wish for. If the economy is humming in 4 years we might find ourselves needing to refinance the enormous debt we've incurred at 5%-8% rather than the 1 or 2% now

sodomizer:First, "wealthy" is ill-defined. Does it include people earning $250,000 a year?

The wealthier the person the slower you move your money through the economy it doesn't have to be rigidly defined. But personally when I use the term very wealthy I am mostly referring to the top 1% of wealth holders.

sodomizer:Finally, the wealthy generally have their money in owned properties, companies, stock, etc. They serve a useful role in this regard.

no doubt but they don't stimulate the economy like the legions of middle class and poor consumers.

They create a threat of economic terrorism to the companies who employ these workers, and pay them well given their abilities.

In the end, what happens is that costs go up to the consumer, competitiveness goes down, organized crime and corruption come in, and while the union workers are overpaid, they're no longer in a growth industry.

As a result only incompetents remain.

Look at what unions did to American automakers.

If it's "economic terrorism" when workers bargain collectively, what do you call it when companies fire workers and relocate abroad? Why are companies expected to act in their own rational self-interests, but when workers do it, it's "greed"?

I find that most folks like you are willing to bash unions, but aren't willing to walk the walk, and forgo the benefits that unions achieved for you: weekends, vacation, holidays, healthcare, business hours, and workplace safety requirements. Until you give these up, you're just a hypocrite, and your opinion should be treated as such.

iutodd32:I knew a guy who had worked for Wal-Mart for years and was making $17 an hour. He quit the company to leave for "greener pastures" and 6 months later he was desperate to get back with the company. Because he quit he'd be going back to the starting wage - which was like 9 bucks an hour.

The point is that if you don't have a degree then you don't have many options. And, honestly, most of the people who make nine dollars an hour barely deserve to make that much.

But if you're somewhat intelligent and know how to work hard then you'll eventually make a decent wage - but I suppose that would be asking too much. People should just make a living wage no matter how unemployable, unreliable, lazy or unintelligent they are right?

Doesn't anyone understand the concept of "earning money"?

I guess the operative term there is "living." Yes, people should be able to live if they are working, or wiling to work.

Private_Citizen:I think all the WalMart wage slaves would like to strike, but they fear retribution.

Afterall, the six richest members of the family that owns Walmart have a combined worth greater than the lowest 30% of the USA.

They did not get that wealthy by being nice to workers.

I use to work for one of the Walton family members (Jim) at one of his banks. He was a great guy and very nice to his employees. One of my first days on the job he came by the bank (not to see me) and stood and talked to me for about 10 minutes-and I was pretty close to entry level.

One of my coworkers told me a heart-wrenching story about how his (the coworkers') wife went into very early labor about 4 hours away from where they lived. This guy was pretty low on the totem pole. The news got to Jim and he found a private plane and contacted the coworker and told him it was waiting at the airport for him. His wife delivered the baby where she was at (4 hours away) a children's hospital. Jim called this guy and told him that his priorities should be with his family and not to worry about anything with work. The coworker stayed at that hospital with his wife and son for six months until they could all come home together. The entire time, no one from the bank bothered him about when he would come back and the entire time he received his paychecks without skipping a beat.

It's important to understand that the Walton family does not own a majority of Wal-Mart stock, although they do have effective control with about 1/3 of the stock.

udhq:I find that most folks like you are willing to bash unions, but aren't willing to walk the walk, and forgo the benefits that unions achieved for you: weekends, vacation, holidays, healthcare, business hours, and workplace safety requirements. Until you give these up, you're just a hypocrite, and your opinion should be treated as such.

He's probably just a wageslave of a different grade, and when the hammer comes down on his own job he'll find some other group to blame it on, because it couldn't possibly be his own fault, unions are bad, and the employers are just behaving in a just and moral fashion, after all.

/He'll complain that I cannot possibly know his situation next, but I don't really give a fark.//Long form birth certificate or he's just 'trollin

Right now, with the global economy still fragile, alot of that excess capital is sitting in risk free assets like treasury securities. If that capital moved to more risky ventures, it would cost us more to finance our trillion dollar annual deficits. So be careful what you wish for. If the economy is humming in 4 years we might find ourselves needing to refinance the enormous debt we've incurred at 5%-8% rather than the 1 or 2% now

Yes, it is a difficult conundrum, to be able to pay your bills when you are making more money or stay on welfare and scrape by.

Perhaps war with Iran, 20% tax cuts across the board and 15 new warships a year will cure the problem.

Debeo Summa Credo:that is a subjective determination given facts and circumstances at the time.

I guess you could come up with some brewsters millions scenario involving all the richest people where their relatively miniscule population were able to spend their money at a rate equal to and on an equally wide spectrum of goods and services as the hundreds of millions of poor and middle class people. Other than that what circumstances would drive such an event?

Debeo Summa Credo:Buying imported jeans from walmart is not as beneficial to the economy as expanding a plant

You still have to unload the jeans from the boat drive the jeans to the shipping center then drive the jeans to walmart then unload the jeans then put the jeans on display and sell the jeans and protect the jeans from theft and you also gotta market the jeans. It would be better probably if the jeans were made here too but there's a lot of labor involved in getting goods and services to a shiat ton of people.

Decades of absolutely terrible car design and resting on laurels put the US auto industry in the hole it's still climbing out of (slowly), not unions.

As for this 'strike', half of me hope it actually works in the most grandiose fashion.

The other half of me hopes it doesn't happen, because nothing is quite as entertaining as watching hordes of folks who supposedly can barely make ends meet, trampling each other for shiatty disposable products that they simply don't need.

The morning itself has endless opportunity for real-time trolling as well, if you're willing to actually get up that early for it.

stonicus:$10/hr on a 40 hour work week gets you $20,800/year before taxes. Below the poverty line.

For how many kids? Dumbasses with a bunch of kids typically farked up by not getting enough education and/or skills to be able to afford a herd of kids. They also do shiat like sleep on air mattresses but have bought every iCrap that comes along.

/3 kids//make plenty of money to raise them///not participating in the shiatty economy

Decades of absolutely terrible car design and resting on laurels put the US auto industry in the hole it's still climbing out of (slowly), not unions.

As for this 'strike', half of me hope it actually works in the most grandiose fashion.

The other half of me hopes it doesn't happen, because nothing is quite as entertaining as watching hordes of folks who supposedly can barely make ends meet, trampling each other for shiatty disposable products that they simply don't need.

The morning itself has endless opportunity for real-time trolling as well, if you're willing to actually get up that early for it.

This is a good point because that's when the incentive to maximize profits from labor ended.

Or maybe you prefer that government decree one size fits all remedies to establish workers protections and fair treatment, rather than have individual firms work out their own labor issues independently under a broader regulatory framework.

This is a good point because that's when the incentive to maximize profits from labor ended.

Or maybe you prefer that government decree one size fits all remedies to establish minimum workers protections and fair treatment, rather than have individual firms work out their own labor issues independently under a broader regulatory framework.

Not sure where you stand on the issue, but add the bolded word and I'm on board.

Used to work Wally world in a tourist town circa '99-'00. Made a whole $6.15/hour and never got 40hrs a week. They would schedule closers till 12:30am and when the store closed at midnight, some stil in college worthless manager would walk around to see that the store was neat and make the whole store go clock out 5-20 minutes early every day. Hated that place with a passion.

I worked for Wal-Mart for a summer after college while I applied to real jobs. I was hired full-time on the spot, but it still was jack-shiat money. I told them what I was going to be making at my new job and asked if they could match it. Of course they couldn't. It was almost four times what they were paying me.

So people who can't get hired full-time there must be lazy or stupid or something.

Debeo Summa Credo:Where do you think the cash supposedly deposited in cayman banks goes? Does it sit in a vault? When you buy a painting, you give money to the seller. What does the seller do with it? Burn it?

Maybe they hang onto it? Or maybe they reinvest, in the hopes of a return for no effort (which oddly enough, generally requires other people to spend their money)